The Playground of Satan Part 28

The soldier's narrow eyes hardened. He was of those who thought it every civilian's duty to follow in his retreat. He drew himself up and spoke rather sharply. But he was still civil, knowing well that the master of Ruvno was no squireen, to be treated with contempt. Ian, for his part, was slightly hostile. He knew the man for his anti-Polish feelings, kept in check when things were going well, but ready to leap out into action now that misfortune was upon them all. Besides, Ian had seen those fugitives, and no man could look upon them without thinking that the army, even in retreat, might have done something to alleviate their sufferings, even if it were but to leave them their corn.

"Count, you don't understand. I repeat: the Prussians are coming.

Surely you are not going to wait to welcome the Czar's enemies."

"n.o.body hates the Prussians more than I," he rejoined. "If I leave Ruvno I shall be a beggar. Besides, it's my home."

"Russia is wide."

"And the road long. No, Colonel. We have lived here, peasant and master, father and son, through many wars, many invasions. For me and my mother there can be no choice, so long as a roof remains for us here.

As to my peasants, I left them free to choose, said not a word for or against. But they have seen those crowds--" he pointed towards the road, where the weary stream of homeless humanity struggled on towards the unknown. "The old and sick left to die alone, children hungry, mothers exhausted. They made up their minds that it is better to die here than in ditches between this and Moscow."

"You accuse us of neglecting the refugees," cried the Colonel, red to his hair-roots.

"No. This is war. The weak and poor and aged suffer most. But I claim the right to choose between two kinds of suffering."

"Do as you please. But you'll all starve. I'm giving orders to burn the crops."

Ian turned white at this. For months he had been fighting against starvation. Every waking thought had been connected with the problem of how to feed those dependent on him for the ensuing year. Even his dreams had been of crops and storms and war agriculture. He had risen with the dawn to plow and till and sow. No landless peasant, hiring himself by the day, had worked harder than the lord of Ruvno. And now, when the fruit of his labors was ripening in these fields so thinned by rapine, trenches and mines; when, by dint of untold effort and determination he had overcome difficulties none dreamed of a year ago, this soldier threatened to fire the little that remained to fill his garners. Controlling himself with an effort, he said:

"And how will you feed us all?"

"In Warsaw."

"You're leaving Warsaw to its fate," retorted Ian. "And you know it."

The man looked perfectly furious at this, and would have burst out, but Ian went on, that tone of authority that Father Constantine knew well in his voice. He said:

"Listen. I had the Grand Duke's promise, last week, that Ruvno will be left intact so long as it or its village is inhabited. You know as well as I do that, where Nicolai Nicolaievitch has been, no villages or crops are ruined wantonly by his retreating army, and no peasants driven to the road against their will. If you tamper with my house or my people, who are half-starved even now, I swear to you that not only the Grand Duke, but the Czar himself shall hear of it."

The Colonel bit his lip and stalked off, fuming with suppressed pa.s.sion.

He knew that the Grand Duke was friendly here. He must have known, too, that Poland's old foes, the Russian bureaucrats, were responsible for driving people off their land by sheer force and doing nothing to help them on their exile into the most distant parts of the Russian Empire.

In silence Ian and his chaplain watched him motor up to the nearest fields and inspect them. They were meager enough, G.o.d knows, cut as they were by trenches. As to the potatoes, they would not be ready for a couple of months, and last year's had gone long ago. They watched him anxiously. Was he going to fire the corn or not? He wanted to, it was plain, if only to show a ruined Polish n.o.bleman that his word was law.

He prowled round and then went back to the high-road, stopping some of the refugees and talking to them. Even after they heard his hooter from the village their eyes still clung to the yellow fields, fearing to see smoke. He went off at sundown without so much as a salute. But he evidently thought it risky to quarrel with Ian, and did not fire the crops. With a sigh of relief Ian glanced across at Father Constantine.

They had finished the stack and were going in to supper.

"Thank G.o.d!" he muttered. "But don't say anything to the others."

"Of course not. But look, what is that?"

On the horizon they saw columns of smoke and a dull red glare; others had not been so fortunate.

The old priest had been trembling with fear all the time lest the Colonel should remember Joseph, and make him an excuse for burning the place. But he had evidently forgotten all about the incident last autumn. So much the better.

Next morning Ian, Vanda and Minnie, with a couple of maids, started out with the reaping machine. Ian, of course, was in charge, and the girls, willing but inexperienced, were to work under him. Since the Colonel's visit he had been in a perfect fever of haste to cut whatever corn was ripe. He left his mother and Father Constantine at the home farm, with admonitions that neither of them must overwork. These two old friends were in the farmyard when some of the Cossacks who had been so busy about the village and amidst the remains of the home forest, came clattering up on their little horses. A young officer was with them.

He saluted the Countess, and said civily, in broken Polish:

"Lady--I must ask you for that reaping machine I saw here yesterday."

"Oh--are you going to reap our fields for us?" she returned gaily.

"That would be very nice of you."

The youth looked sheepishly at her, but said nothing.

"Well--what do you want it for?" she insisted.

"Lady--I'm sorry. But your reaping machine contains steel and other metals; and we have orders to take every ounce of steel and iron and copper away."

The Countess looked at her chaplain in silent consternation. The old man, ever ready to help her, sharply told the officer to be off. The Cossack was not so civil to him.

"No nonsense," he said. "Where is it?"

"But I protest against having my place looted," cried the Countess.

"Lady, I'm sorry. I would not take a nail from Ruvno. But orders are orders. See here," and he pulled a slip of paper from his boot, dismounted and took it to her.

She waved it aside.

"It's Greek to me--I don't understand this taking everything."

"No. I--Lady Countess, I say again, I'm very sorry. But I'm only a poor Cossack, to obey orders. Where is the machine? We have to be off--or the Germans will take us--and the metals."

"My son has gone out with it," she said shortly. "You'd take the shoes from our feet if you'd the time."

"No--I would take nothing. Whereabouts is your son with his machine?"

She pointed angrily southwards. The direction was vague. The man looked at the sun, which was getting high.

"He'll be back at midday?"

"I doubt it. He has much to do."

He turned to his men.

"Children! Hasten. Do you go and fetch the bells."

"What bells?" cried the priest in alarm. But n.o.body answered. The Cossacks left the yard and trotted towards the chapel. Father Constantine hastened after them, the Countess after him. But as the way was rather long and their feet older than they thought, they arrived before the chapel just in time to see the Cossack's take down the three bells and put them on as many horses. One had been cast four hundred years before by an Italian who did much work in the neighborhood. The other two were modern, but of good workmanship.

"And they've taken the bell that used to hang up in the home farmyard,"

said the Countess ruefully, as a Cossack they had not noticed before came up with it.

Father Constantine had not recovered from the shock of seeing his beloved bells slung across the Cossack saddles, when she gave another cry of anger. Several more Cossacks had come up. Their horses were laden with the copper pots and pans from the kitchen.

"It's as bad as if the Prussians were here," she exclaimed. "What do they imagine we're to cook with?"

The young officer, who had been to the kitchen, now went up to her. His face was crimson.

"Lady Countess, I regret this as much as you do--" he began.

"I doubt it," she retorted.